Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security

NASA (National Air and Space Administration)

█ MORGAN SIMPSON

The Department of Defense (DOD) and the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) have to date elevated aerospace technologies to
great heights. In a July 31, 1915, interview in
Collier's Weekly,
aviation pioneer Orville Wright (1871–1948) said, "The
greatest use of the aeroplane [airplane] to date has been as a
tremendously big factor of modern warfare." His statement could
also be considered true today, along with the role played by commercial
transportation in world's affairs. The victory of the United States
in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 illustrated the utilization of air and
space to quickly quell an opponent's fighting ability. In this
conflict, air and space utilization came in the form of direct air
support, air to ground strategic targeting, Global Positioning System
(GPS) targeting, and aerospace reconnaissance, both airplane and
satellite. This utilization of air and space remains among the most
powerful physical tools for ensuring national security.

NASA and DOD joint research has propelled the advances that make air and
space important military assets. NASA's part in national security
strategy is not as substantial as it was during NASA's first 35
years of existence (during the space race), but it still plays an
important

role. As a national icon, NASA inspires nationalism in the American
people, and its achievements are projected worldwide as an exhibit of
America's scientific ability. A superpower nation with a space
program was historically perceived as a potential threat to other nations,
as seen with the United States reaction to the launching of the Soviet
Union's
Sputnik
during the Cold War. The nation's response was the creation of a
national civilian air and space agency called NASA.

NASA aeronautical research spurred numerous advances in aviation from
which the military benefited; early studies regarding lifting bodies and
fly-by-wire aircraft, which used NASA-developed electronics to control the
inherently unstable aircraft, are two examples. Many of the aerospace
research projects at the Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC) in
California are joint projects that advance aerospace engineering, science,
and develop military hardware. Some of the research involves speed of
sound (sonic and supersonic) studies, aeroelastic wing research, lifting
body studies, unmanned vehicles, and other proprietary research.

Even though DOD and NASA have different space programs, they share
numerous resources and have many joint contracts that support both the DOD
program and the NASA program. These range from the simple support
contracts for routine battery maintenance to expansive operations such as
communications and spacecraft tracking. Both organizations share launch
pads for expendable launch vehicles. Some of the expendable launch
vehicles at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) at Cape Canaveral, Florida, are
the Titan, Atlas, and Delta rockets. Launch and
other facilities at KSC are resources shared by NASA, the Navy, and the
Air Force.

NASA played a direct role in national security by providing the means to
take heavy payloads into orbit. DOD has made its most direct use of NASA
equipment in utilizing the Space Shuttle to bring up numerous DOD
payloads. The contents of many of these payloads are classified
information. There have been ten DOD dedicated shuttle launches. They are
STS 51C, 51J, 27, 28, 33, 36, 38, 39, 44, and 53 (STS, which stands for
Space Transportation System, also known as the Space Shuttle). Many of
these missions remain secret even today, although some general knowledge
about national security-based payloads has been disseminated and reported.
In
The Space Shuttle Roles, Missions and Accomplishments
space historian David M. Harland stated that the shuttle delivered three
new reconnaissance satellites in recent years. One satellite, called
Lacrosse, provides all-weather vehicle-tracking capability. Another
satellite included an advanced geostationary listening post. The third
satellite is considered to house advanced imaging capabilities. It remains
a secret as to what other DOD dedicated missions delivered to orbit or
accomplished using the shuttle. Classified DOD missions continue to be
carried out today, but mainly utilize the expendable launch vehicles. DOD
and NASA both frequently have multiple minor payloads in addition to the
major payload on a mission (both shuttle and expendable) to save costs.
Some of these minor payloads are DOD sponsored payloads.

At one point, the vision of routine Space Shuttle launches was so powerful
that the Air Force reluctantly agreed to phase out expendable launch
vehicles. The Air Force's acceptance of the shuttle came with
imposing requirements on the shuttle to launch heavy payloads of up to
60,000 pounds and to provide a cargo bay of 18 meters. The
shuttle's payload mass weight has been downgraded to increase its
margin of safety. The failure of the shuttle to run routinely, once a
week, and the
Challenger
accident in 1986 motivated the DOD and NASA to change the DOD's
main launching platform back to the expendable launch vehicles. Department
of Defense then moved to utilizing new heavy lifting expendable launch
vehicles to replace the shuttle's heavy lifting capacity. These new
heavy-launch expendable launch vehicles can deliver almost 50,000 pounds
to low Earth orbit.

Launch vehicles, including the Space Shuttle, utilize hardware that could
be used for military applications such as the sophisticated guidance and
navigations systems. The loss of the Space Shuttle
Columbia
in 2003 required personnel to retrieve instrumentation from the crash
site to secure it to protect the secrecy of the technology.

The most well known NASA personnel are its astronauts. Astronauts have
been used to carry out the DOD dedicated Space Shuttle missions. This
required the astronauts to receive training on the secret payloads in
order to properly execute the mission. The classified information given to
the astronauts is usually kept to a minimum of relevant required
knowledge. The payloads are normally loaded into the launch vehicle at the
latest possible opportunity in order to maintain security. Shuttle
astronauts repaired one DOD satellite via EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity),
spacewalk, when it failed to start. The majority of astronauts chosen for
these missions have a military background, mostly for the flight
experience. It is difficult to define to what extent NASA personnel have
worked on DOD payloads because of the classified nature and the numerous
joint research activities.

The Air Force has had astronaut-like programs, such as the Spaceflight
Engineers and the Military-Man-In-Space program. Before the shuttle,
spaceflight engineers were recruited to utilize the Gemini spacecraft to
go to a planned Manned Orbiting Laboratory. The orbiting laboratory was
cancelled with the introduction of automated cameras on satellites.
Afterwards, spaceflight engineers were Air Force pilots who would train to
be the specialist that would fly on the shuttle to oversee specific DOD
payloads. In January, 1985, Gary Payton (a Spaceflight Engineer) flew on
the first dedicated DOD shuttle mission, STS 51C, to supervise the
deployment of a classified payload. The spaceflight engineers program was
later disbanded. The Military-Man-In-Space program was designed to
determine the potential for humans to be used for Earth observations.
Human vision and intelligence was found to be a valuable asset as remote
sensors, because of man's adept ability to distinguish subtle
variations in hues more accurately than cameras and film. Remote sensing
from space with accurate ground truth can greatly enhance the
understanding of large natural systems like forests and ocean dynamics.

NASA's main role for national security is to inspire the youth of
today that will populate aerospace professions in the future. This pool of
technically minded persons will give the DOD a more intelligent and
numerous base from which to recruit a future workforce. High-risk
technologies have the potential to provide tremendous benefit for mankind.
For aeronautics, NASA research divisions are positioned to study more
technologies for their own benefit as well as that of the DOD, and the
nation as a whole.